Cybercrime generally refers to criminal activity involving computer systems. Such activity includes the use of computer systems to perpetrate various crimes including money laundering. Money laundering generally describes the process of taking “dirty” money made from illegal activities and “cleaning” the money so that the money then appears to have originated from a legitimate source.
In recent years, money laundering techniques involving online payment accounts and virtual currencies have become more complex and elusive. For example, criminals may deposit funds in many small transactions across multiple online payment accounts to avoid detection. Criminals also may choose to move money through foreign accounts in jurisdictions providing fewer regulations and greater secrecy. Further, virtual currencies allow criminals to move funds secretly between various accounts beyond regulation. As such, virtual currencies have resulted in problems not present with conventional currencies, such as paper money.
Money laundering and other fraudulent online financial schemes continue to increase both in volume and sophistication. Therefore, providing new and improved ways of detecting and stopping such criminal activity are of importance.